Phoenix, who bravely jumped onto the dry Martian soil

 

Report: #0100

  

NASA calls it "Phoenix" (while it's flying) and "Mars Lander" (Mars Lander) when it's landed on Mars: "Phoenix Mars Lander."

Phoenix, the bird that lets itself be burned alive to die in fire and thus be reborn renewed and stronger again. The phoenix bird that rises from the ashes. Now, it nearly fell into the ashes of Mars. It was flying on its descent from orbit very close to—or directly over—a large crater. A landing inside or on the rugged terrain toward the bottom of this immense crater would have been another success. It would have been the third failed special envoy in the attempt to land. Fortunately, it wasn't so. There aren't many places as flat and rock-free as the one where it finally landed.  

 

NASA shows us two things in this adventure.

One: That it's playing poker. Big poker. Expensive poker. Hundreds of millions of dollars sent to a place incredibly far from Earth. A place in motion.

Mars rotates on its axis and moves away in its orbit every moment from the place it was an instant before. OK, these movements are linear and not quantum leaps—that is, the linear motion of a planet can be calculated. Not by me personally, but an astronomer with a good computer knows where a planet will be tomorrow in space.

The Mars Orbiter is already circling Mars. Possibly, its position is used for Phoenix corrections too.

But the Orbiter also constantly circles Mars. Sometimes, it enters the shadow of Mars itself—that is, Mars places itself between the Orbiter and the zone en route—or Earth. So, signals must be stored in the Orbiter's computer and, when it regains contact with Earth, sent quickly. Also, as you know, it receives all data from the two Mars Rovers, Opportunity and Spirit. Not few bits and bytes to absorb and transmit to Earth—to NASA's control center. We haven't even talked about the images the Orbiter itself takes. They too must be sent to Earth.

If the Orbiter can correct its course and turn its camera toward spontaneous points of interest, I don't know. Forgive me, but I'm not a professional in engineering, astronomy, electrical engineering... I'm like you and you all there; I'm interested in all that, but that's as far as it goes. In truth, I always want to show beautiful and slightly curious things. I leave the technical explanations to them, as it should be. Let each stick to their glue, says the carpenter.

And I'm an agronomist—not a carpenter—so why and with what do I meddle with NASA? Simply because yes. Period. 

Now, I continue with Phoenix, which fell into the ashes of Mars. I hope it can take flight with many new discoveries. We need to know once and for all if there is life or water—or not—on Mars. That's its mission. 

Now, I come to point two of what NASA shows us.

NASA shows us its immense technological power.

The Orbiter, as I said, flying, rotating, sending data—that is, working full throttle. Then comes its little brother, Phoenix. It greets it from afar and guides it to the correct orbit. In truth, Phoenix does it alone, because it's not foolish. It's also a NASA product.

But it's small. And at an exact moment, it lets itself fall toward the Mars surface. Its older brother is at this moment 760 kilometers away—and who knows where. In Phoenix's view, or in shadow, or over the south pole—or where. But it doesn't matter. NASA knows it, Phoenix knows it, and moreover, the Orbiter knows it. Even more, it promised NASA, the whole world, and its brother to take a photo when Phoenix descends with its parachute. And so it was. On a sunny day (luckily, it stopped raining a few days earlier—no joke), Phoenix is about to land. 

 

Now, look at the photos of Phoenix—not the Orbiter, but the Lander, or rather, the Flying Phoenix!  The interesting thing is that the camera is on the Mars Orbiter satellite, at a distance of 760 km. It is capable of finding a falling object—the Phoenix—and taking images of an object 10 meters in diameter.

The parachute is 10 meters in diameter. Phoenix, I don't know at the moment—perhaps half. At nearly 800 kilometers, with the Orbiter traveling around Mars and Phoenix falling, a sharp photo comes out!

The other images, at a height of less than 300 kilometers above Mars, with little air in the atmosphere—as they say (how does a parachute work without air?)—do not produce bright images—or even in natural color. 

In one blow, NASA shows its technological power, because the Mars Orbiter is not stationary. No. It spins quickly over Mars, but they meet to greet each other in the air and take photos.

At other times, the same Orbiter sends us inferior quality images—very inferior. Why?

Josef Bauer

 

Could it be that another satellite is orbiting Mars at a lower altitude? Is it possible that another Mars or space vehicle took the photo from a closer distance? What if NASA has other vehicles that we are not aware of?

The Wallpaper the Phoenix jumps 1024x768  171.7KB